When I write for teens, I feel I can cut through everything and get to the bare bones. I can get straight into the emotional world of the character.

I wrote to find beauty and purpose, to know that love is possible and lasting and real.... Once I got to my desk, once I started writing, I still believed anything was possible.

Maybe some love was guaranteed. Maybe it fit inside you and around you like skin and bones.

I wonder how a lioness will manage in a dovecote. Can you put away your teeth and claws?

He has the ability to catch someone by the way that he looks at her, and make her wish he would go on looking.

Any weapon touched by a woman, even by accident, must be cleansed with both water and prayer so that her essence would not linger, diverting the warrior who might use it next, for even the faintest touch could bring lust to that man's heart. Perhaps that meant a woman who was well trained in arms would be the superior warrior, her attention never wavering from her task.

Any institution becomes a community - whether it's a high school or a boarding school or a publishing company or a small town where everybody knows certain things about people.